Analyst Adrian Chamberlain says: “Traditionally the role of the chief purchasing officer has been quite a junior one. Increasingly what we are seeing is the chief purchasing officer is being seen as much more valuable within a company.
“The significance of these officers in a company and their seniority is going up all the time. We are at the start of a revolution. We are seeing very large multinationals rethink the way they can manage their supply chains, the way they can rationalise their supply chains, the way they can manage risk more centrally and strategically.”
Companies are also using collaborations between each other to increase their understanding of risks in the supply chain and reduce the cost of gaining that knowledge.
Chamberlain says: “Typically why people are driven towards collaboration is because if they try to do it on an individual basis, it costs them an enormous amount of money. What we estimate is that the actual global management of supply chains is costing companies about $60bn around the world.”
